BTB's 'Best Of The Best': All-Cowboys Fantasy Four-Team Tourney (Kickoff)

Welcome Cowboys fans young and old to the kickoff post of BTB's latest exercise, 'Best Of The Best' (BOTB moving forward). Back in May of last year, BTB member TK19 issued a challenge to the front page writers at the time to conduct a fantasy draft made up entirely of Cowboys past and present. When I was brought on board back in December, this was one of the numerous series ideas I jotted down. I started formulating the parameters a little before the draft, and now that we've had a bit of a slow period I've had a chance to finalize the rules and regulations, and the framework of the exercise. What we hope to bring you is two-fold. First and foremost, an interactive exercise that will keep us entertained for a couple weeks. Second, this will be a great opportunity for all of us to learn more about the vaunted Cowboys history.

As stated in the comments of TK19's posts, the Cowboys are one of only a handful of teams even capable of running a tournament such as this. Yes, we rock.

Here's how things will work. I have compiled a list of over 130 Cowboys, a selection for each position on the field. There will be four teams composed of only Cowboys. There will be a fantasy football, snake order draft to fill the teams. The first two rounds, each owner will be required to pick an offensive or defensive philosophy. The offensive and defensive philosophies will determine the roster makeup. Starting with the third round, the owners will be allowed to select any player from the player pool until his roster is complete.

Follow the jump for much more...

The process leading up to the draft results posts will give us an opportunity to look at players from every Cowboys generation, from inception to current version. Following the announcement of rosters, we will open up the polls to determine who did the best job of constructing a team. To evaluate, we'll use the ultra-scientific method of confidence rankings. I was first introduced to confidence rankings a few years ago on ESPN's Mike and Mike Show. To try and predict which playoff team would eventually hoist the Lombardi, they ranked each team in a variety of categories, which one you have the most confidence in. The team that had the highest composite ranking (lowest aggregate score) should emerge victorious. We'll use that methodology.

For five categories, Coaching, Passing Game, Running Game, Defense, and Special Teams, we will have a poll for the entire community to decide. Each post will include player tidbits to help you make your choice. The fantasy team with the most votes will be ranked 1st, and so on down the list.

Now, as is human nature, current history always seems to be more revered than decades past. To balance this out, the poll results will not be the sole deciding factor of which fantasy team is victorious. The confidence rankings will account for 50% of the results. The other 50% will be determined by a statistical metric. We'll keep a lid on that for now to help with the suspense of the tourney. In the event that the statistical metrics and the confidence polls, I have a simple tie-breaking metric I'll employ. It might seem a little confusing right now, but I think I've tweaked everything to the point this should run pretty smoothly and be a fun exercise for all.

Here is the tentative post schedule, subject to tweaking as we move forward.

Post 2: Offensive Coaches Pool
Post 3: Defensive Coaches Pool
Post 4: Offensive Rosters
Post 5: Defensive Rosters
Post 6: Team 1 draft results
Post 7: Team 2 draft results
Post 8: Team 3 draft results
Post 9: Team 4 draft results
Post 10: Coaching Confidence Poll
Post 11: Passing Game Poll
Post 12: Running Game Poll
Post 13: Team Defense Poll
Post 14: Team Special Teams Poll
Post 15: Poll Results Synopsis
Post 16: MatchUp #1 w/ overall results
Post 17: MatchUp #2 w/ overall  results
Post 18: Finals matchup

So strap on your helmets Cowboys fans, this should be a pretty cool ride through the summer breeze. Hope you enjoy.